No doubt some targeted spending would have been good for the economy. But, that is not to say that the stimulus bill wasn’t loaded with pork. Just spending for the sake of spending, and stretching the worthless spending over many years, will do nothing for the economy. I don’t think you have a good handle on this subject, or you are woefully unaware of what was in the stimulus bill.
Your post 47 didn’t address the objection that “there’s 10 years taxes for 6 years spending, therefore there’s no savings at all!” criticism. The fact is, that criticism is false. The savings, as estimated by the CBO, are real.
Now what your post did say is that, firstly, the CBO’s predictions about future spending are uncertain, and predictions for the spending on healthcare entitlements in the past have turned out to be much higher than expected, so the same could be true of this bill. I agree. That’s a valid criticism. The CBO’s prediction is the best we have, but it’s not perfect, and it is a risk to create a new entitlement based on savings that could conceivably turn out to be illusory. Personally I think that, given the CBO estimate is the best we have and says the bill will not add to the deficit even in the worst case scenario, providing health care for millions of Americans is worth that risk. But that’s just a disagreement we have.
Secondly, you said that no future Congress will stick to the savings that Obama’s bill mandates, and that they’ll repeal them. That’s possible. But if we can’t trust future Congresses to not change the law to avoid any cost controls we implement, then we’ll never make any savings at all and the country will go bankrupt. I guess that’s possible, but the only alternative is to set up the law and trust that it’ll be stuck to.
The reason the costs went up is because people started living longer with other technological advances. What will happen in the future is anyone’s guess.
You don’t understand. It’s not the idea, it’s the funds for the subsidies silly. You wanna start sending people checks you need to have the money. This isn’t rocket science, you should be able to follow this. 
Show me where. You are talking but providing no evidence. The article you linked to had a lot of what-ifs. Just because you assume something will happen doesn’t mean it will. You might be wrong.
Paygo doesn’t apply to emergency spending. Like unemployment during the worst recession since the great depression.
Paygo, in the 90’s lead to budget windfalls, which were squandered by the last administration and a republican congress. Republicans don’t care about deficits.
It wasn’t a complete waste, and only an utterly ignorant person would even try to argue that. It is a fact that it saved us. It is a fact that the government is the spender of last resort. I would think that someone who wants to argue policy on message boards should know this.
SCHIP was paid for by raising taxes on cigarettes. So no, it didn’t raise the deficit. Shouldn’t you have known that before you brought it up?
The spending bill was created under the previous administration. Changing it would have taken time we didn’t have.
Medicare Part D does cost 800 billion over ten years. And it isn’t paid for.
I’m plenty educated, thanks. You’re the one who doesn’t understand basic economics.
The quote you’re talking about was made before we knew how bad the situation was. Once they got the more recent job reports it was worse than we thought. If you think the stimulus was unnecessary, you’re simply ignorant. And if you’re unwilling to fight that ignorance, I don’t know what to say.
The stimulus was necessary. Everything else was Bush’s.
Laughing is easier than learning, I guess.
Correct. Nobody knows. But you can almost be certain that new technologies and drugs will be developed which will be expensive. And, of course, that will be considered standard care at that point. This is what makes the CBO score so problematic. The left is so busy telling the public that this health bill will save money over 20 years that they forgot to point out the obvious.
So, you believe it takes 4 years to save up enough to subsidize the poor for 6 years? And you still believe we will save money in the second decade?!? Oh, I guess we’ll have another break of 4 years at the start of decade two to save up again. You really don’t see the problem here?
Nothing can be proven and that is the point. How can you PROVE that the dems are not going to push a doc fix bill within the year? I don’t honestly believe either party has the will to cut doctor reimbursement by $200 billion and I don’t believe they can magically find $500 billion in Medicare waste. Yet the CBO has to assume these things in order to score the bill.
Everything is an emergency. Also, paygo is a gimmick used by both parties and is complete BS. Paygo exempts all discretionary spending and does nothing to reign in the costs of ever expanding entitlement programs already in effect.
Neither party cares about deficits. This is one thing both parties agree on.
Hardly a fact. As I’ve stated previously targeted spending by government can help the economy. We still hear daily how this money is being wasted on pet projects.
Increases in taxes tends to decrease a particular activity. Couple that with FDA regulating tobacco and you will need to start convincing people to smoke in order to pay for the SCHIP expansion.
No time to be fiscally responsible? Got it.
CBO estimated the drug benefit at $640 billion over 10 years. It’s now down to $410 billion. But, not to worry, congress is already planning to spend those savings.
I think you need to look in the mirror.
Of course! We had NO IDEA how bad is was going to be until it became that bad! It couldn’t be that the stimulus did not work as planned…
It will save money. If medical advances increase the cost of medical care (which it is just as likely to lower) it will still save us over what the current system would cost.
Again, you don’t understand the issue. If you want to pay out money you have to have money. Again, you need starting capital. It’s beyond silly to suggest that we’d need more money at the start of decade two. Have you ever balanced a checkbook? I can’t understand how someone can be so utterly ignorant about finance. You amaze me.
I can’t prove that the congress won’t amend the constitution and make Glen Beck president for life. However, the last democratic administration left office with a surplus. So long as we don’t have Borrow and Spend Republicans™ in charge I think they’ll make the cuts. Remember, the Medicare isn’t being cut, Medicare Advantage, a private program that is more expensive and no more efficient than Medicare is being cut.
No it isn’t.
The HCR bill extends the life of Medicare by a decade.
No, you just want that to be true because you don’t want to be on the ideological losing side. Democrats care about the deficit, that’s why the HCR bill is paid for.
When there is unused capacity you can literally drop money out of airplanes and it will help the economy. Using the money to fund needed infrastructure improvements is by-far the smartest thing to do. Remember, jobs have a multiplier effect greater than one, that is to say, I pay my worker a dollar, he uses that dollar to buy ice cream for his son, the ice cream vendor uses it to buy some straws, the straw vendor uses it to pay his warehouse crew and so on. Each dollar spent adds something like a dollar forty to the economy.
Tax cuts (the Republican answer) have a multiplier of less than 1. Many people save tax cuts, or use them to pay down interest on a debt. They actually don’t help the economy as much. So the Republican answer is objectively wrong on this one. But it doesn’t matter to them, because ideology is king.
Good. Then they can raise the tax higher.
No, you really don’t get it. It would have added weeks of fighting in the congress when we needed to work on the stimulus bill and get started on HCR.
Got a cite for that?
From:http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/07/washington/07medicare.html?_r=1
If I need to gaze at a handsome, intelligent bastard I’ll keep it in mind.
It’s a fact that the most recent report wasn’t out when that statement was made. And it was worse than most economists expected. This however, only underscores how important it was. Again, if you don’t understand economics, that’s fine. But maybe you shouldn’t stake out an ideological tent on the issue if it bewilders you?
I think you are clueless as to why medical expenses have gone up and will continue to go up. First, having a third party paying the bill inevitably leads to increased use of the service. More people on the rolls, especially those that are subsidized by the government, will mean more trips to the doctor. The same applies to simply reducing copays…the result is the same.
Second, advances in medical technology do not create a downward pressure on prices like, say, the computer market. Once a third party (insurance or government) decides to pick up the tab for a treatment, the developer of the technology gains nothing by lowering the price. Decreased price has zero impact on sales volume…those that are covered can get the treatment regardless of price.
Third, any new drug or advace that allows treatment of a condition that was previously untreatable will increase healthcare costs. Costs, in fact, go from zero for that condition to whatever the new drug or treatment costs.
These costs will always increase. Any decrease due to, say, a drug that is cheaper than a surgery will be overshadowed by these factors. No doubt there are inefficiencies in the insurance industry but the above is a major reason health care costs have increased and will continue to increase.
It is YOU that does not understand the issue. Most of the most substantial tax increases do not even go into effect until 2013 which, coincidentally, would be after the next presidential election. If taxes were raised in the next year then the poor who cannot afford health insurance would see an almost immediate benefit in terms of subsidies. Think of those 45,000 people each year that Obama will have sentenced to death for the sake of politics.
Presumably the money that is coming in between now and 2013 will be used for whatever infrastructure is necessary to run this behemoth plan. I assume some of the money will, as you say, be put aside for the subsidies. But, this could have been avoided by implementing the tax increaes immediately. Also, keep in mind, money is never set aside at the federal level. Just look at social security and medicare funds. It appears to me that you are utterly ignorant about how government and politics works.
[quote=“Lobohan, post:65, topic:533617”]
I can’t prove that the congress won’t amend the constitution and make Glen Beck president for life. However, the last democratic administration left office with a surplus. So long as we don’t have Borrow and Spend Republicans™ in charge I think they’ll make the cuts. Remember, the Medicare isn’t being cut, Medicare Advantage, a private program that is more expensive and no more efficient than Medicare is being cut.
[QUOTE]
Much of the so-called savings results from the fact that Congress assumes an annual increase in Medicare of 2% over the next two decades. This is a big assumption considering it has increased at 4% per year over the past two decades. This is yet another example of clever accounting that the CBO must score as-is. Medicare advantage cuts will account for $118 billion of the cuts over the next decade. Almost $200 billion is from the payment cuts to physicians that will probably never materialize. These numbers are from a Nov. CBO report:
http://www.commonwealthfund.org/Content/Newsletters/Washington-Health-Policy-in-Review/2009/Nov/November-23-2009/CBO-Says-Senate-Bill-Would-Cut-Federal-Health-Care-Payments-500-Billion.aspx
That is nothing more than an accounting trick. The savings from cuts to medicare are considered a net gain in the trust fund, but the funds saved are spent on the new program. That’s called double counting. Here is the CBO report…read the last paragraph: (Warning PDF)
http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/108xx/doc10868/12-23-Trust_Fund_Accounting.pdf
Sure! The CBO estimates that Obama’s budget will increase the total debt to $10 trillion or 90% of GDP. That sure sounds like fiscal responsibility to me! Here’s the CBO report. Read the summary on page 9: (Warning…Large PDF)
http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/112xx/doc11280/03-24-apb.pdf
As I said, targeted spending at a much reduced rate would have been better for the overall health of the future economy. If any old spending would be helpful then I would have favored dropping that money out of a helicopter since it is, ultimately, our money. Unfortunately, this bloated stimulus package was Chinese money and, with the very real threat of the dollar losing value and the US losing its AAA rating, we will be paying out the nose for that stimulus. Not to mention the inflation all this spending will cause.
Right…until there are no smokers to fund the program. You really should read that Econ 101 textbook again.
Yeah…fiscal responsibility starts NEXT year.
Sure:
You don’t know the results of automation, computer advances, imaging breakthroughs, nano particle treatments, or things that we can’t think of. In the future, cancer might be something you treat with a series of low-cost injections.
And treatments that can be done on an outpatient basis, or as a series of doctor visits will cost much less.
Not true. Something there is no treatment for might require months of palliative care and a future treatment might be a series of pills. Again, you don’t know, and you’re making irrational guesses.
You assume.
You can’t enact huge changes without time for people to adapt.
Well, a lot of things that aren’t true appear to make sense to you.
Dude, your own cite says it will extend the life of Medicare. It’s saying that the current numbers don’t include the double counting, that it would be much higher if it did.
Again, you ignore facts that are shown to you and respond with fantasies. The Stimulus (which was utterly necessary) is Obama’s contribution to the deficit. The rest are Medicare Part D, the wars, the reduced tax revenue from the recession and are his problem, but not his fault.
Deficit spending is better than a deflationary spiral. Once businesses sell off capacity because of reduced demand the economy is permanently crippled.
Dude, if they tax smokers out of existence they can use the hundreds of billions of dollars they save the health care system to pay for SCHIP. :rolleyes:
In any case there is no way we’re going to run out of smokers.
No, it started last year. Again, you need to understand where we were. It seems like you think that the economic downturn was a joke. We could have lost tens of millions of jobs and put us in a decade or more of hell. The stimulus and the bailouts were necessary. The bailouts were done in a shitty manner, but blame Bush for that.
I notice you’ve linked to an opinion piece on the WSJ. How shocking! Could you pass along his cites? Because I have no desire to subscribe to WSJ. If I want to listen to crabby conservatives I log into the Dope.
Wow…just gloss right over my comment.
Bravo! Another great job of glossing over my comments and providing a non-answer
You need to read my comment again. At any rate, there is no such thing as low cost drugs when they are developed. Like many, you seem unwilling to acknowledge that R&D, and VERY expensive clinical trials are required to get any drug to market. Then, of course, there is the period of time that a drug has an exclusive patent. Then, the next big drug comes along. Unless, of course, the Pharma tax doesn’t stifle research.`
As do you. The difference is that I have history and common sense on my side. You, on the other hand, have wishful thinking and the mental need to believe that, by some miracle, health costs will magically be reduced. If they are going to be reduced so much then we really didn’t need this ridiculous plan. Or, the alternative, price controls can be established. That will do wonders for research and care in general.
What?!? People need to adapt to a tax increase? I’m guessing that the Democrats need to win another election before the public sees what is really in store. You didn’t even try with that response.
Dude…you are not even trying to argue anymore.
Dude…did you bother to actually /READ the CBO report?!? Here…I’ll quote the relevant parts:
Underlining mine.
Wow…you don’t believe it even when it is right in front of your face.
You just don’t get it. Do you even read what I type? I’ll try again…A leaner, more targeted stimulus would have been better for our economic outlook than the bloated, pet-project laden stimulus we actually received.
Again you are showing your ignorance of economics. Tax something enough and people will stop or a black market will form. Either way, no tax revenue. Also, the government doesn’t gain as much as society from less smokers. Certainly not enough to fund SCHIP. The government needs smokers to keep smoking and live longer.
Did I miss this? The president was already telling us we were headed for another Great Depression. Was it even worse than that? The fact is that the stimulus did not have the expected results so now we are to believe that it was going to be worse than another Depression.
The link opened for me and I do not subscribe. Though when I clicked on the link from the post it did not open the entire story. Here is a CBO report from '05:
http://www.cbo.gov/doc.cfm?index=6139&type=0
I can’t find the CBO report but here is another op-ed that says the same thing about the reduction:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/06/11/_medicare_drug_plan_ought_to_be_model_for_health_reform_96949.html
I was talking about the first ten years. I think you may be talking about the next ten years. I don’t subscribe to the NYT so I can’t open your link.